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Let me just say that I've been playing whack a mole with a new feature for while now. And it's becoming very tiring.

TLDR; CTO is changing the way we're going to implement this, every other day.

June 1st,
CEO: let's implement feature AAA,
CTO: we're going to have a call with Andy to tell us all about his product that will make this super easy, call will be June 4th.

Days before June 4th,
Me: Researchs product X, makes demo works flawlessly.

June 4th,
Call all good, few tips from Andy. We come to the pricing section of Product X

CTO: this will not work, pricing doesn't fit on our budget, fair enough.

June 7th -11th
Me: research altenative approach. Makes second demo.

CTO: Works good, seems to have too many moving parts, let's have call with Bob to check Product Y. It should make our lifes easier.

ME: Geee, ok let's check it out.

June 14th,

Call with Bob, all good, product has a fair price, stuff is experimental.

CTO: let's use Product Y, and just use what we get from their api now, and worry about changes later.

Me: Hmmm, that's a bit risky, but ok, you the boss, right?, starts again new demo. API doesn't work as documented.

Lots of trial and error to figure out how the api is working now, finally demo works well,

June 17th,

API changed, now it works as documented, (expected as it is experimental), previous demo doesn't work anymore.

June 18th,

Redoing research. inputs are completely different from Product Y now, need to redo all that is working and do and a lot more of research.

Go live is scheduled for end of next week, I hope that the API is stable now, and that I get to go live on schedule.

It is funny to see, that it would probably been the same if we just waited on the API to stabilize, and check the pricing section before choosing a product? Who knows.

Anyways, I actually feel happy that over the years I developed the patience to work with ever changing situations like this one.

Comments
  • 3
    I have the same situation, If CEO/CTO want to take the risk of working with an alpha/beta version product and they still pay and not blame the developer. For me it's okay.
  • 2
    I’m chilled about this kind of thing too.

    “Can we use a lighter shade of sky blue?”

    “Sure. Here’s my invoice.”
  • 2
    Even though PoC is exactly for these kind of things, doing a bit of research would have eliminated the first two in a day. That was a massive time waste due to incompetent leadership.
    I feel they should have just set a few boundaries and let you do the research on it. You are the engineer and should be qualified in making the recommendations.
  • 1
    Are you me from the past?

    At least you have documentation for the api and not doing it on prod!
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